WASHINGTON — A missile strike from an American military drone in a remote region of Yemen on Thursday was aimed at killing Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-born cleric believed to be hiding in the country, American officials said Friday.

The attack does not appear to have killed Mr. Awlaki, the officials said, but may have killed operatives of Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen.

The media is divided on the story... Here in Orstralya, the Fairfax media is telling it as close as they can from the news wire. It's the one on the left. The Herald Sun, the poster touting the rag on the right — a newspaper from the Murdoch stable — knows far more — as usual.... Actually either Uncle Rupe himself or a couple of his directors at News Corp shot Bin Laden...

There is something fundamentally crazy-making about the fact that Osama bin Laden, damned murderer of thousands, met his demise on the anniversary of the day George W. Bush, damned murderer of thousands, pulled his infamous "Mission Accomplished" stunt on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln.

I suspect that, had Mr. Bush managed to back up his big talk and actually bag bin Laden before his second term expired, we would have seen him jump out of an attack helicopter at Ground Zero wearing a SEAL uniform - complete with night-vision scope and even larger codpiece - under a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished II."

Archaeology of power

Whether Pygmalion or Narcissus, Obama and Osama share a realist's vision of how power is wielded.

As a result, Obama's state and Osama's base (literally, "Qaeda")-less state shamelessly deploy violence. Both are thus in love with a Galatea that is caught in an unstoppable archaeology of death and war-making.

Regardless of victimhood or guilt, both are victims of the ideals and ideas they are in love with, and in their pursuit – a Godly transcendence or the deity of modernism and capitalism – they construct myths, guards, weaponry, and languages to match.

The belief that relations between the old Australian population and migrants should be governed by the ideal of multiculturalism was threatened by a growing conviction that one or other of the religious-ethnic groups - ''Asians'' first, then after Tampa and September 11, ''Muslims'' - posed a threat to national cohesion. Because of the influence of a crass new cohort of right-wing commentators - Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones, Miranda Devine, Janet Albrechtsen - the cultural struggle against old patterns of racism was reinterpreted as the arrogant attempt of self-appointed thought police to impose their elitist values on the commonsense virtues of ordinary people.

Really .....

Australia secretly worked with the United States to weaken a key international treaty to ban cluster bombs, leaked US diplomatic cables show.

Despite taking a high-profile stance against cluster munitions - condemned as the cause of large numbers of civilian casualties - Australia was privately prepared to pull out of international negotiations on a global ban of the weapons if this threatened ties with US forces.

Mr Trump, who is toying with a possible presidential bid, had been driving the controversy and last week said he was proud he had forced Mr Obama to make his long-form birth certificate public.

"But no-one is happier, no-one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald," Mr Obama said.

"That's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter - like did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?"

As the president joked, Mr Trump sat stony faced at a table hosted by the Washington Post.

He had told people before the dinner he did not expect the president to even mention him.

"How is this helping in the protection of civilians? Mr Saif al-Arab was a civilian, a student," he said. "He was playing and talking to his father and mother and his nieces and nephews and other visitors when he was attacked and killed."

An adopted daughter of Col Gaddafi's was killed in 1986 by a US air strike launched in response to alleged Libyan involvement in a Berlin bombing targeting US military personnel.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13251570

A Nato air strike in Tripoli has killed the youngest son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, a Libyan government spokesman has said.

Saif al-Arab Gaddafi, 29, was killed along with three of Muammar Gaddafi's grandsons, according to reports.

The Libyan leader was in the building at the time of the strike, but was unharmed. Several of Gaddafi's friends and relatives were wounded.

Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said: "This was a direct operation to assassinate the leader of this country."

"The attack resulted in the martyrdom of brother Saif al-Arab Gaddafi and three of the leader's grandchildren," he said.

When was the last time you heard a Labor leader declare him or herself ''the most progressive leader the ALP has ever had''? When was the last time you could be confident that a Labor leader would challenge powerful interests - especially economic and corporate power - and not back down? When was the last time you could be sure of what a Labor leader stood for, and be proud of him or her?

Strange problems make for strange solutions.

In a country where people of good conscience are ignored in favor of megalomaniacs like Donald Trump and Sarah Palin, our society has been well-trained to sit up and pay rapt attention in matters regarding the military.

We worship at the altar of the armed forces, and for two basic reasons: 1. Average people pay respect to those in the military because that service to our country is worthy of praise; and, 2. A few very influential people - in the defense industry, the oil industry, and the media - make vast fortunes off the defense budget and the wide coverage any military engagement is given.

from Crikey .....

And we now cross live from London's Green Park Royal Wedding media compound (housing over 8000 broadcast journalists and technicians) to veteran US television journalist Dan Rather...

Although Superman never actually renounces his citizenship in the story, conservative commentators reacted with disgust.

In a blogpost at The Weekly Standard, senior writer Jonathan Last questioned Superman's beliefs, now that he seems to have rejected the United States. "Does he believe in British interventionism or Swiss neutrality?" Last wrote. "You see where I'm going with this: If Superman doesn't believe in America, then he doesn't believe in anything."

Posters on comic book discussion forums drew parallels between the superhero's doubts about his citizenship and the conspiracy theories about Barack Obama's nationality.

Weather records are falling as rapidly as the rain in Sydney, meteorologists say.

Sydney has experienced its wettest March and April in 21 years, with a total of 371 millimetres of rain - nearly 30 millimetres of which fell in the last 24 hours, Josh Fisher of weatherzone.com.au said.

A third of the average annual total of 1213 millimetres of rain has already fallen this year, with the wet weather expected to persist for the next one or two months as the La Nina pattern tapers off.